Budget discussion foreshadows hard choices to be made

Faculty members attending the Sept. 26 opening meeting of this year's
Faculty Senate got a preview of the conflicts that may develop later this
fall as the university struggles to cut about $40 million from its $425
million annual operating budget.

Following presentations about the budget-cutting process, an art history
professor accused a chemist of slighting the creative and performing arts.

A classics professor, meanwhile, questioned whether the process would gain
faculty support or would faculty instead "be pulled along in something
approaching a bloodbath."

And the two representatives of the Associated Students said students
should have more input in the decision-making process.

The discussion opened with Provost James N. Rosse explaining the budget
problem. The reduced indirect cost rate, a slower than expected growth in
research volume and the general state of the economy "overpowered the
intended effect" of last year's $22 million reduction in the budget base, he
said.

Rosse reminded the senate that university trustees last June "reluctantly"
approved a three-year cumulative deficit totaling about $47 million,
excluding the Medical School.

Despite the $22 million "repositioning" effort, the 1990- 91 budget
shortfall was almost $20 million, Rosse said. And even with projected
holdbacks of $14 million this year, a deficit of nearly $15 million is
anticipated for 1991-92 and another $14 million in 1992-93.

Rosse said that he and others "had hoped the deficit would go away over
the summer, but it didn't."

At Rosse's request, Prof. Charles Kruger, chair of last year's senate,
discussed the work of the Cabinet Committee on Budget and Strategic Planning
(CC-BSP), which is playing a key role in the budget-reduction process. Kruger
is deputy chair, under Rosse, of the committee.

Kruger explained the committee's structure and its relationship to other
groups also studying budget issues. The 18 members of the cabinet committee
include nine tenured faculty and two students, he said.

Specific budget-cutting decisions will be made in the fall and winter.
Dollar targets will be announced after Oct. 17 for each of the university's
20 administrative and academic units.

Senate committee report

Following Kruger's presentation, chemistry Prof. Richard Zare introduced
preliminary recommendations from the ad hoc Committee on Education and
Scholarship (SC-ESS), formed by the Faculty Senate last June.

The group and its five task forces spent the summer developing a set of
preliminary recommendations about the university's future.

Zare, who chaired the committee, told his senate colleagues that the
committee felt administrative and support services should be targeted for
larger cuts than academic programs.

Academic programs should not be subjected to across- the-board reductions,
and university officials should preserve programs that are indispensable
components of Stanford's essential academic character, he said.

Zare also described the work of the five task forces established to study
undergraduate education, graduate and professional education, research and
scholarship, administrative services, and revenue enhancement.

Scholarship vs. creativity

Zare said the committee felt that distinction and prominence in
scholarship should be the university's central goals.

Stanford is "above all a community of scholars," Zare repeated from the
committee's conclusions.

Anything peripheral to the pursuit and transmission of knowledge, such as
expenditures that "merely enhance the quality of life," should have lower
priority when budget-cutting decisions are made, the committee wrote in its
preliminary recommendations.

"Not seeing creativity spelled out as a basis for consideration requires
an explanation," Elsen said. "It is a serious omission."

He challenged the composition of the nine-member senate committee, which
in addition to Zare included Profs. Pat Jones, biological sciences (deputy
chair); Lucius Barker, political science; George Dekker, English; John Eaton,
mechanical engineering; George Fredrickson, history; William Northway,
diagnostic radiology and nuclear medicine; James Van Horne, business; and
Robert Weisberg, law.

Responding to Elsen, Zare said that choices must be made. "I bring you the
wisdom of this group, and I welcome people who will convince us otherwise or
enlarge our wisdom."

Elsen was joined by English Prof. Ronald Rebholz. "The decision is already
made that the creative arts do not rank with other scholarly work," Rebholz
said, asking "are we entitled to challenge this?"

There would be nothing for humanists to study if people were not creating
great works of art and literature, he said.

Supporting Zare, committee member Fredrickson agreed that the committee
felt "that more traditional scholarly academic enterprises did deserve some
priority over the performing and creative arts."

He acknowledged the committee may have reached that conclusion because the
performing and creative arts faculty was not represented.

But Zare said the decision was not an accident. "We discussed this type of
issue and other kinds of things the university could have."

Academic vs. administrative cuts

Classics Prof. Marsh McCall, who also serves as dean of continuing studies
and summer session, said that future budget discussions should deal with
questions of legitimacy, credibility and trust.

Although calling the results of the Zare committee "magnificent," McCall
said he was dissatisfied that the task force on administrative services
chaired by political science Prof. Stephen Krasner "has thrown up its hands
in despair."

McCall said no cuts in academic programs should be considered until a
faculty group assures the senate that no further cuts can be made in
administration and support services.

He predicted the current process would not answer questions about how
things are done.

Zare countered the implication that administrators are trying to keep
faculty in the dark about their functions. "Administrators are begging
faculty to come listen and understand what they do."

Krasner told McCall that he felt from the beginning that the
administrative services task force assignment was not achievable because
faculty members lacked expertise to make recommendations about administrative
units.

The assignment has been reorganized and more faculty members added to
liaison teams studying administrative units under the auspices of the Cabinet
Committee on Budget and Strategic Planning.

President Donald Kennedy told McCall that faculty on the liaison teams
have been very active and that administrative and support functions are being
put "to the sternest possible test."

He criticized the notion that all administrative cuts could be made before
trimming any academic programs. "It is a lot more complicated than that.

Students John Louie of the Associated Students' council of presidents and
Kevin Warsh of the student senate both said students should have a greater
say in budget cuts.

Just two students on the 18-member cabinet committee cannot represent the
full diversity of the student body, Warsh said.

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